2018-12-11

UK Brexit Agreement Vote: Now A 'No Deal Brexit' or Renegotiate

Lord Digby Jones, formerly the U.K.’s trade minister and director general of the CBI, discusses the January 29th votes of Parliament on a number of Brexit amendments. CNBC International TV video above published Jan 30, 2019.

See also:

Don't Expect The EU To Cave On May's Brexit Deal Until The Very Last Minute--"EU diplomats have pointed to a last-minute summit set for March 21 and March 22 - just a week before Brexit Day - as the likely time when a deal may finally be struck."--zerohedge.com.

Delaying or canceling Brexit ‘unconstitutional,’ lawmaker says--U.K. Member of Parliament John Baron discusses the possibility of delaying Brexit or holding a second EU referendum--CNBC International TV video published Jan 29, 2019.

UPDATE: Run Down the Brexit Clock:"... prospect of a no-deal Brexit on March 29 remains in play after the British Parliament emphatically rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU. Although it is tempting to reset the clock and give negotiations more time, that instinct must be resisted ..."--Yanis Varoufakis, Jan 16, 2019, project-syndicate.org and @yanisvaroufakis.

"... the Eurozone, and maybe the wider European Union (EU) is far from being a happy place ... one cannot rule out another economic crisis. I say this as the UK exports goods and services worth €209 Billion ($237 Billion) to the EU and imports from the EU trade worth €342 Billion ($388 Billion). The UK accounts for 16.8% of all EU exports. That is a too big a hit for a bloc the size of the EU to take without a problem rippling through the economy ..."--Forbes.com.

'Brexit Deal Vote' analysis: 432 MPs voted against the deal (434 including two tellers), including 118 Conservative rebels, 250 Labour MPs, all 35 SNP MPs, all 11 Lib Dem MPs, along with the 4 MPs from Plaid Cymru, the 1 Green Party MP and 5 Independents, and lastly 10 members of DUP who otherwise support the Conservative government. Add back the 118 Conservatives and 10 DUP members, and May's government will withstand the "confidence vote" 330 to 304--UPDATE Jan 16: Theresa May wins the U.K. confidence vote, 325-306.

Theresa May’s fatal error was to accept a two-phase negotiation: a divorce agreement followed by a new trade deal. “This was a declaration of war because Barnier said: ‘You will give us everything we want: money, people, Ireland. And only then will we discuss what you want.’ Well, that isn’t a negotiation, that’s a travesty. And Theresa May agreed to play along.”--Yanis Varoufakis in “The EU declared war and Theresa May played along”--newstatesman.com.

Best path forward now: re-negotiate withdrawal agreement or leave with "no deal" March 29, 2019, under WTO trade rules.What's next after the January 15th vote against May's 'Brexit Deal'? "A statement and motion on the Government's next steps for Brexit will be tabled on Monday 21 January. It will be debated Tuesday 29 January."

UK ramps up no deal Brexit preparations – troops on standby: Channel 4 News video published Dec 18, 2018: Three and a half thousand troops are on standby, while letters to 140,000 businesses are warning them to prepare for the worst. The government says that although pursuing Theresa May's Brexit deal is still its top priority, it's now begun ramping up its preparations for no deal. Details of where £2bn in funding will be spent have been revealed, while advice for the public will be rolled out over the coming days on everything from potential traffic chaos to credit card fees.

May and Juncker clash over Brexit deal (Dec 14, 2018 video): European leaders told Theresa May that a renegotiation was not possible. Frustrations boiled over during a "robust" exchange between Theresa May and the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, after he had complained that her demands were"nebulous and imprecise."

"We will meet on Thursday and Friday [Dec 13-14] for the last European Council this year. Given the seriousness of the situation in the UK, let me start with Brexit. The intention is that we will listen to the UK Prime Minister's assessment, and later, we will meet at 27 to discuss the matter and adopt relevant conclusions. As time is running out, we will also discuss the state of preparations for a no-deal scenario."--Invitation letter by European Council President Donald Tusk to European Council members ahead of their meetings on 13 and 14 December 2018.

".... What’s puzzling about the scenarios shown in [the Bank of England's {BoE)] Figure 1 is that they show these disruptions going on for multiple years, with barely any abatement. Really? Britain is an advanced country with high administrative capacity — the kind of country that history shows can cope well with huge natural disasters, and even wars. Would it really have that much trouble hiring customs inspectors and installing computers to recover from an 8 or 10 percent drop in GDP?

"And even in the short run, I wonder why Britain couldn’t follow the old prescription, “When all else fails, lower your standards.” If laxer enforcement, special treatment for trusted shippers, whatever, could clear the bottlenecks at the ports, wouldn’t that be worth it, despite the potential for fraud, as a temporary measure?

"That said, it’s truly amazing that Britain finds itself in this position. If the downsides are anywhere close to what the BoE asserts, given the risk — which we’ve known for a long time was substantial — of a hard Brexit, it was an act of utter folly not to have put in backup capacity at the borders. We can’t possibly be talking about all that much money, and the Brexit vote was more than two years ago. What has the UK government been doing?

"All in all, it’s quite a spectacle. Whether you’re pro-Brexit or anti, you should be horrified and outraged at how the issue has been handled."--Paul Krugman in the NewYorkTimes.com 30 Nov 2018.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May's 'Brexit Deal' was to have been voted upon by the House of Commons in December (2018), is worded in one very long sentence for the House of Commons debate and vote:

"That this House approves for the purposes of section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the negotiated withdrawal agreement laid before the House on Monday 26 November 2018 with the title 'Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community' and the framework for the future relationship laid before the House on Monday 26 November 2018 with the title 'Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom'." More info here. See also Legal Note (pdf) and UK Parliament videos and What people in the UK think are the biggest issues facing the EU | statista.com.

Editor's note: original post title "UK Brexit Agreement Dead? Now A Hard Brexit or Capitulation to EU? "